Tragic Noida Accident: Techie Dies After Car Plunges into Water Pit

A 27-year-old software engineer died after his car veered off the road and plunged into a 20-foot-deep, water-filled pit dug for the basement of an under-construction building in Sector 150 of Greater Noida in the early hours of Saturday. Moments after the accident, the victim, Yuvraj Mehta, managed to call his father, Rajkumar Mehta, and said, “Dad, I’ve fallen into a deep pit filled with water. I’m drowning. Please come and save me. I don’t want to die.” The call was cut off shortly thereafter. Police said they received information about the incident at around 12.15 am, following which a search and rescue operation was launched. Teams from the local police, fire department, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were pressed into service. Mehta’s father also rushed to the spot. After nearly five hours of rescue efforts, the car and Mehta were pulled out of the pit. He was declared dead, police said. The body was recovered at around 4 am. and sent for post-mortem examination. Mehta, a resident of Tata Eureka Park society in Sector 150, worked as a software engineer with a company in Gurugram. He was returning home from work at the time of the accident. Additional Commissioner of Police (Greater Noida) Hemant Upadhyay said preliminary investigation suggested that fog and overspeeding may have caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle. “The car appears to have crossed a drain before falling into the pit,” he said, adding that further investigation was under way. Following the incident, local residents staged a protest against the Noida Authority, alleging negligence. They claimed that similar accidents had occurred earlier at the same spot and that repeated complaints about the lack of proper barricading and reflectors near the drain had gone unaddressed. “Residents had repeatedly requested the authorities to install barricades and reflectors, but no action was taken,” a protester said. (With inputs from PTI)